Add Murder to Maduro’s Crimes

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The suffering for Venezuelans started with higher prices. Now, that level of suffering seems a past paradise compared to the the runaway inflation, the starvation, the lack of government services — and murder.

Venezuelan opposition leader Fernando Albán, a Caracas councilman and outspoken critic of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, is reported by police to have jumped to his death Monday from the 10th story of the secret police headquarters.

The announcement of Albán’s death drew immediate criticism from the international community as well as from members of the Venezuelan opposition. They said Alban was a devout Catholic, who would never have considered killing himself.

We cover Venezuela closely, not for the spectacle that it is but because it should serve as a warning to others. When central banks spend decades printing money and shamelessly stealing its value from the citizens of a country, Venezuela is what you get.

It is in the final stages of decay before something emerges to replace the shattered societal order. We are certain that solution does not have Maduro leading the charge.

Nowhere in the modern world does Lord Acton’s famous quote fit better than it does now in Venezuela: “Power tends to corrupt; Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

And it seems there is no depth to which Maduro is willing to stoop to hold onto power. He shamelessly dines on expensive steak while in Turkey while his people starve under crushing inflation.

Maduro is now forcing anyone who wants a passport to pay in Petros, Venezuela’s new cryptocurrency that is allegedly tied to the country’s petroleum reserves as well as other natural resources.

Because most Venezuelans don’t have enough cash to pay in Petros, they are essentially hostages of Maduro. Despite this fact, Venezuelans continue to flee their native country at the rate of about 4,000 per day.

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, reports that nearly two million Venezuelans have fled their country since 2015, largely compelled to leave in search of more security, income, and access to food and medicine.